Assuming that I understand the way the mod works correctly, it gives +80% additive base damage per unique status effect currently on the target. That being the case, it will be inferior to a maxed Primed Pressure Point until three different status effects have been applied. Why does CO seem to be preferred when it just seems to be not as effective unless you’re also running a status primer of some kind?
Three main reasons:
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It’s a cheaper mod. Easier to access, easier to max rank.
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Applying three or more status effects is a lot easier than it sounds. A typical melee has impact, puncture, slash, and some kind of modded element. This means CO will beat other options after a few swings. Some enemies will die before CO reaches its full effect, but you didn’t need the extra damage on them anyway. CO is far more effective than Primed Pressure Point against the biggest and strongest enemies, which are where you need the most help.
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With a status primer like the Epitaph or Kuva Nukor, CO can produce a far higher damage multiplier than Primed Pressure Point. You can easily get 5+ statuses if you build right, which is a huge damage increase.
Likely because most making those builds are assuming you are running a primer, or are using weeping wounds. If you aren’t using the combo-counter or a primer it’s as you said, just inferior (in almost all typical use cases for melee).
The main reason is that you get more damage out of CO than PPP and that’s why it is preferred. Statusing enemies is a natural and common occurrence in Warframe missions. In order for PPP to be better most of the time it would take an environment where status procs are less frequent to the point that the flat PPP bonus is higher more often than the CO bonuses and this simply isn’t the case unless you can craft this theoretical environment (by playing solo without a companion and also ensuring that you have very low status chance on your weaponry). Or you could just play CO which is fine on its own but scales up (hard if you lean into it with priming).
In Warframe, flat bonuses are fine until you reach harder content where your build will need to ramp up to keep up.
You’re usually spreading status effects around you with your abilities and your companion, which all help stack Condition Overload.
Example: I’m a Volt main who uses Shocking Speed and Nourish. My melee weapon has IPS and Corrosive. My Sentinel has Verglas with Cold and Gas. This means I’m inflicting up to 8 different status effects on the enemy, assuming it can even survive all that, which translates to up to 640% damage increase.
You can take things even further quite easily with a primer weapon like Epitaph.
There’s a major divide between comfy builds where you only use a weapon and advanced builds that utilise up to the entire arsenal.Primer + melee is somewhat convenient tho.
